DISTURBING INSIGHTS ON
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF A GREEN ECONOMY IN KENYA
BY ABUTA OGETO
Sustainable
development is a concept that has been on the global agenda for quite a while,
not least with the upcoming replacement of the Millennium Development Goals in
2015 with the ‘Sustainable Development Goals’. However, while there is broad
agreement on the concept, how to achieve sustainable development in practice
has been an issue of major contention, especially with regards to the immediate
monetary costs.
According
to UNEP, “A green economy is one that results in improved human well-being and
social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological
scarcities. In its simplest expression, a green economy can be thought of as
one which is low carbon, resource efficient and socially inclusive”
Characteristic
of other sub-Saharan countries, Kenya’s economy derives almost half of its GDP
from natural resources, while more than half of the households in the country
rely on agricultural activities for income. This inevitably reveals the
vulnerability of the economy to environmental and climatic shocks, and with
alarms of overstepping planetary boundaries are already blaring, the latest
IPCC report, Assessment Report 5 (AR5), indicates that the world should brace
itself for the increasing impacts of climate change, through enhanced climate
change adaptation.
To this
end, Kenya has just released its Green Economy blueprint – the UNEP Green
Economy Assessment Report: Kenya – providing an interesting insight into how a
low-income country can ‘economically’ transition to a green economy
development, as well as building on the body of evidence supporting this
transformational shift.
Kenya’s
national real GDP, under a Green Economy scenario, would outpace the
Business-As-Usual scenario by 12% by 2030 – UNEP Green Economy Assessment
Report – Kenya
SECTOR-SPECIFIC
INTERVENTIONS
The
interventions laid out in the UNEP Green Economy Assessment – Kenya report are
sector-specific, as they mainly target the agriculture, transport, energy and
manufacturing industries. The crux of the report is that Kenya’s national real
GDP, under a Green Economy (GE) scenario, would outpace the Business-As-Usual
(BAU) scenario by 12% by 2030 – this is an important year since Kenya’s current
development blueprint culminates in 2030. This would be manifested through high
long-term economic growth. More specifically, this would, for example, entail
the agricultural yield outgrowing the BAU scenario by 15% by 2030 through
embracing of climate-resilient crop varieties; and energy reduction of 2% and
increased energy savings and proportion of renewable energy such as geothermal,
as compared to a BAU scenario. This, coupled with the projected doubling of GDP
per capita under the GE scenario by 2030, lays a strong case for the
transformational shift to a Green Economy development pathway. Despite the fact
that short-term measures call for substantial investments, the quantitative
analysis in this report reveals that long-term benefits will be eventually
accrued in the shift to the green economy model within 7-10 years; quite
remarkable!
THE
FINANCIAL EQUATION
Transition
to a green economy requires substantial financial investments, no doubt. This
has been the elephant in the room as regards transition to a green economy for
countries in the Global South. To this end, the Green Assessment report for
Kenya does acknowledge this challenge, and has subsequently identified a cocktail
of financial sources to fund the transition to a Green Economy. These include –
but are not limited to:
International
funding sources: The international
climate finance mechanisms such as Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), REDD
activities, carbon trading, and other funds from bilateral and multilateral
donors
Domestic
financing: Public resources such as
government budget scientific research
and geothermal energy
exploration; and private sector financing
SILVER
LINING: SIMPLE IS EFFECTIVE
Also of
major interest is the fact that a good number of the interventions outlined are
‘no-brainers’; things like better environmental conservation and water resource
management. Simple as they seem, these interventions have significant potential
to unlock green growth opportunities. But a more detailed account would grant a
deeper insight. With the requisite foundation clearly laid out – National
Climate Change Action Plan and mainstreaming a comprehensive green economy
strategy in the Medium Term Plan for development (2012-2017) – Kenya is poised
to realize the transition to a green economy. Most of the interventions laid
out in the report are simple in the sense that they do not require significant
technical expertise – hence need for technology transfer and capacity building.
For instance, improving agricultural yield would need sustainable water
management using simple techniques such as rainwater harvesting and increased
usage of readily available organic fertilizers.
SECTOR INTERVENTIONS
Agro-forestry and sustainable water management must ensure post-harvest loss
reduction and training on soil and water management. A green economy scenario
would outpace the BAU scenario by about 15%.
Doubling
of geothermal energy capacity by 2030, small-scale off-grid systems, solar (we
have plenty of it), wind. Green energy should account for 20% of total energy
supply by 2030, leading to a reduction of 2% in energy consumption.
Enhancement
of mass transit (rail and public transportation), integrate land-use and
transport planning to enhance efficiency will be very critical.
THE
BIGGER PICTURE
The
transition of Kenya’s economy to a sustainable development pathway has global
significance, and is an important cog in building the global momentum towards
sustainability. Africa’s joint position paper on the post-2015 global
development agenda, the process developing Sustainable Development Goals to
succeed the Millennium Development Goals in 2015, clearly identifies green
growth as one of the priority areas of focus.
In
tandem, with countries working towards a global climate agreement in Paris in
2015, under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), much
attention is being focused on countries reducing their domestic greenhouse
emissions in the build up to the new agreement In this report on Kenya’s Green
Economy Blueprint, for instance, with CO2 emissions from transportation set to
triple in Kenya between 2010 and 2030, switching to more efficient
transportation modes – such as mass transit systems – will be instrumental in
reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
With the
task clearly cut out, and the path well defined, Kenya’s transition to a green
economy will undoubtedly serve as a significant case study, especially for other
countries in the Global South, in the transformative shift towards sustainable
development.
However,
this well laid out plan will require coupling with political will to realise
full implementation. Thus far, the integration of climate change mitigation and
adaptation interventions in Kenya’s Medium Term Development Plan (2012-2017) is
a beacon for scaled action. Even better, many other countries, including those
from the Global South, are switching to a green economy, thus offering a
much-needed boost to global efforts to switch to sustainable development. This
is undoubtedly crucial for the well-being of current and future generations,
since intergenerational equity is one of the overarching principles of
sustainable development.
The writer is an Actuarial
Science Student, Writer, and Inspirational Speaker from Kenya.
